What Bugsy Malone Can Teach Us About Success!

What Bugsy Malone Can Teach Us About Success!

The thing is with knowledge you have to take it as and when you find it.

For years when people have asked me where do you get all your best ideas I used to tell them Bugsy Malone. Partially as a joke but secretly there was a lot of truth in what I said.

You see Bugsy is not just a great film, there is also a lot of great wisdom in there that is often overlooked by those who watch it.

If you are not familiar with the film it is Alan Parkers take on the gangster film. The difference is that all the characters are played by children. The guns don’t shoot bullets they shoot custard. The cars are peddle power. Much of the dialogue comes in the form of song. So if you will Bugsy is in essence a gangster musical with kids.

As a child I was mesmerised by the film oh how I wanted a splurge gun and a peddle car. Jodie Forster as Tallulah was my idea of all thing glamorous, there were definitely no girls like here in my school.

Scott Baio who played the eponymous title character was the very definition of all that was cool! He was smart he was funny, he was street savvy and he seemed always to be one step ahead of the game.

All that is unimportant for the purpose of this article, the important point is that, in the songs there was wisdom. Some of it truly profound.

Yep I know what your are thinking, really in a kids film? I tell thee yes!

Ok you want proof!

Have you ever procrastinated about anything or said to yourself i can do that tomorrow? Yep! We all have that is part of the human condition right?

Well the film gives us some advice on the subject from the song Tomorrow. In the film there is a character who keeps on trying to get an audition for a job as a dancer from the owner of a speak easy. Everyday the owner says to the character ok you can get an audition tomorrow. The lyrics state “Tomorrow never comes, tomorrow a resting place for bums!”

Clearly stating that if you put off living your life for too long you might end up in the worst off all situations living like a down and out! Our character knows that there is no tomorrow he states “what kind of fool do they take me for!”

The thing is he also gives us the cure for being put off. He says “I won’t take no for an answer!” Or to put it another way I will take control of my own fate and not be at the whims of others! The whole song is a masterclass in seeing how you claim control of your fate!

You want some more advice from Bugsy, in a song entitled “Down and Out” it gives us a cure from complaining about your situation. At the start of the song we hear these lyrics.

You don’t have to sit around
Complaining ’bout the way your life has wound up
Think of all the time you waste
And time’s a precious thing to let go by

Talk about philosophy hidden in plain sight!

They also go on to give your there cure in the very next lyric it says..

Sure you’ve hit the bottom
But remember you’ll be building from the ground up
Ev’ry day’s another step
That takes you even closer to the sky, so give a try

It goes on a little further to tell us how we do it by really taking a stand for ourselves and how we can start to make progress by taking a chance and making some new changes!

Fight and fight some more
Until you know the world is ready to receive you

So be a man you know you can’t be certain
That you’ll lose until you try, so give it a try

You want some more?

Ok how about Karma or if you prefer sow and reap or to put it another way, if you provide value first, then you will reap the rewards! We here this in the lyrics..

You give a little love
And it all comes back to you

Simple, yet completely accurate.

It also goes on to tell you about the importance of Character and how we should strive to keep ourselves to our highest standards and be impeccable with our word after all….

You know you gonna be remembered
For the things you say and do

I won’t go on any more about just how good a film Bugsy is because every time I watch it I think for both children and adults it is a philosophical masterpiece.

That said I will leave you will one final lesson from Bugsy Malone it comes in the form of telling us that we become the sum total of the choices we make and it is never to late to start making better ones.

We could’ve been anything
That we wanted to be
Yes, that decision was ours

We could’ve been anything
That we wanted to be
And it’s not too late to change
I’d be delighted to give it some thought
May-be you’ll agree that we really ought

There are so many other great bits of wisdom in the film take the time to watch it if you haven’t or reacquaint yourself with it if you have.

Hey, maybe you will realise somewhere in the film that you really can be anything that you want to be.